By the time we get to classification and taxonomy, our students could really use a break and a fun activity. We study Genetics, which is always our hardest unit. Then, we move to Evolution. By the time we are wrapping that up, they are just tired. It seemed like this was even more true this year. So, I decided to let them have a little fun and classify candy. This worked out really well and they had a blast. I loved the names they came up with too!
I asked my students to bring in bags of candy and I figured I’d get enough candy to at least complete the activity. I got enough candy to share with my entire team! I didn’t offer any extra credit, I just sent a Remind message saying we would have fun with it.
I actually did this at the beginning of classification. We have reviewed Kingdoms earlier in the year, so that idea was easy. We did a very brief lesson on how our classification system is set up and how to write scientific names. We made flowcharts because I felt like that would be a helpful way to start a dichotomous key. Having a flowchart of yes or no questions really helped them make the key.
Overall, I liked the way this went. The students got really into making the names sound Latin and many actually used Google translate to make up names. They understood how classification systems are used and how to use a dichotomous key. I feel like that was a win.
For any students that were absent, I just searched up an image with a variety of candy and printed it for them to use. This worked well. I also saved some of the candy so they could have a little.